“Conall!”
The head of a wolf came into Alexia’s line of vision. It was not one she was personally familiar with: a craggy, rangy creature, graying about the muzzle but muscled and fit despite evident signs of age. Lady Maccon struggled to prop herself farther up onto the pillows.
The wolf’s neck was covered in blood, the fur matted with a dark red crust, but otherwise it showed no injury. As though the blood were not her own. Which, technically, as she had now become supernatural, it might not be anymore.
Sidheag Maccon lolled a tongue out at Alexia. Alexia wondered how the wolf would respond to a scratch about the ears and decided, given the dignity of the woman when mortal, not to risk such an approach.
She looked at her husband. At least he seemed to have changed his shirt and washed his face during her mental absence. “I take it it worked?”
He grinned hugely. “My first successful change in years, and a female Alpha at that. The howlers will cry it to the winds.”
“Somebody’s proud of himself.”
“Except that I should have remembered how distressing metamorphosis is to outsiders. I am sorry, my dear. I didna mean to upset you.”
“Oh pish tosh, it wasn’t that! I’m hardly one to be overcome by a bit of blood. It was simply a little dizzy spell.”
Lord Maccon shifted forward against her and ran a large hand down the side of her face. “Alexia, you have been entirely comatose for well over an hour. I had to send for smelling salts.”
Madame Lefoux came around the side of the couch and crouched down next to Alexia as well. “You had us very worried, my lady.”
“So what happened?”
“You fainted,” accused Lord Maccon, as though she had committed some egregious crime against him personally.
“No, with the metamorphosis. What did I miss?”
“Well,” said Madame Lefoux, “it was all very exciting. There was this crash of thunder and a bright blue light and then—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Lord Maccon. “You sound like a novel.”
Madame Lefoux sighed. “Very well, Sidheag started to convulse and then collapsed to the floor, dead. Everyone stood around staring at her body, until all of a sudden, she began spontaneously changing into a wolf. She screamed a lot—I understand the first change is the worst. Then we realized you had collapsed. Lord Maccon threw a conniption fit, and we ended up here.”
Lady Maccon turned accusing eyes to her husband. “You didn’t, and on your granddaughter’s metamorphosis day!”
“You fainted!” he said again, disgruntled.
“Stuff and nonsense,” replied his wife sharply. “I never faint.” A bit of her old color was returning. Really, who would have suspected she could turn quite that ashen?
“There was that one incident, in the library, when you killed the vampire.”
“I was shamming and you knew it.”
“How about that time we visited the museum after hours and I trapped you in a corner behind the Elgin Marbles?”
Lady Maccon rolled her eyes. “That was an entirely different kind of passing out.”
Conall crowed. “My point exactly! Just now, you actually, positively, did faint. You never do that kind of thing; you’re not that kind of female. What’s wrong with you? Are you ill? I forbid you to be ill, wife.”
“Oh, really. Stop fussing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I’m just a tad off-kilter, have been since the dirigible ride.” Alexia pushed herself more upright, trying to smooth her skirts and ignore her husband’s still-stroking hand.
“Someone could have poisoned you again.”
Alexia shook her head decisively. “As it wasn’t Angelique who tried before, and it wasn’t Madame Lefoux who stole my journal, and both occurred on board the dirigible, I believe the perpetrator never followed us to Kingair. Call it a preternatural hunch. No, I’m not being poisoned, husband. I’m just a little bit weak, that’s all.”
Madame Lefoux snorted, looking back and forth between the two of them as though they were both batty. She said, “She is just a little bit pregnant is what she is.”
“What!” Lord Maccon’s exclamation was echoed by Alexia. Lady Maccon stopped smoothing out her skirts, and Lord Maccon stopped smoothing out his wife’s face.
The French inventor looked at them, genuinely amazed. “You did not know? Neither of you knew?”
Lord Maccon recoiled away from his wife, violently, jerking to stand upright, arms stiff by his sides.
Alexia glared at Madame Lefoux. “Don’t talk piffle, madame. I cannot possibly be pregnant. That is not scientifically feasible.”
Madame Lefoux dimpled. “I was with Angelique during her confinement. You show every possible sign of a delicate condition—nausea, weakness, increased girth.”
“What!” Lady Maccon was genuinely shocked. True, she had been slightly sick to her stomach and unreasonably off some foods, but was it really possible? She supposed she might be in an indelicate condition. The scientists could be wrong, after all; there didn’t exist very many soulless females, and none of them were married to werewolves.
She turned a suddenly grinning face to her husband. “You know what this means? I am not a bad dirigible floater! It was being pregnant that made me ill on board. Fantastic.”
But her husband was not reacting in quite the manner anticipated. He was clearly angry, and not the sort of angry that made him bluster about, or shout, or change form, or any of those normal Lord Macconish kinds of things. He was quietly, white-faced, shivering angry. And it was terribly, terribly frightening.
“How?” he barked at his wife, backing away from her as though she were infected with some terrible disease.
“What do you mean, how? The how should be perfectly obvious, even to you, you impossible man!” Alexia shot back, becoming angry herself. Shouldn’t he be delighted? This was evidently a scientific miracle. Wasn’t it?
“We only call it ‘being human’ when I touch you, for lack of a better term. I’m still dead, or mostly dead. Have been for hundreds of years. No supernatural creature has ever produced an offspring. Ever. It simply isna possible.”
“You believe this can’t be your child?”
“Now, hold on there, my lord, don’t be hasty.” Madame Lefoux tried to intervene, placing one small hand on Lord Maccon’s arm.
He shook her off with a snarl.
“Of course it’s your child, you pollock!” Now Alexia was livid. If she hadn’t still been feeling weak, she would have stood and marched about the room. As it was, she groped for her parasol. Maybe whacking her husband atop his thick skull would drive some sense into him.
“Thousands of years of history and experience would seem to suggest you are lying, wife.”
Lady Maccon sputtered in offense at that. She was so overset she couldn’t even find the words, a remarkably novel experience for her.
“Who was he?” Conall wanted to know. “What daylight-dependent dishtowel did you fornicate with? One of my clavigers? One of Akeldama’s poodle-faking drones? Is that why you’re always visiting him? Or just some milk-curling mortal blowhard?”
Then he began calling her things, names and words, dirtier and harsher than she had ever heard before—let alone been called—and Alexia had encountered more than her fair share of profanity over the past year. They were horrible, cruel things, and she could comprehend the meanings of most, despite her lack of familiarity with the terminology.
Conall had committed many a violent act around Alexia during their association, not the least of which was savage a woman into metamorphosis at the supper table, but Alexia had never been actually afraid of him before.
She was afraid of him now. He did not move toward her—in fact, he’d backed farther away toward the door—but his hands were fisted white at his thighs, his eyes had changed to wolf yellow, and his canines were long and extended. She was immeasurably grateful when Madame Lefoux physically interposed herself between Alexia and the ea
rl’s verbal tirade. As though, somehow, the inventor could provide a barrier to his horrible words.
He stayed there, on the other side of the room, yelling at Alexia. It was as though he’d placed the distance between them, not because he didn’t want to come at her and tear her apart, but because he really thought he might. His eyes were such a pale yellow they were almost white. Alexia had never seen them that color before. And, despite the filthy words coming out of his mouth, those eyes were agonized and bereft.
“But I didn’t,” Alexia tried to say. “I wouldn’t. I’d never do those things. I am no adulteress. How could you even think? I would never.” But her protestations of innocence only seemed to injure him. Eventually, his big, good-natured face crumpled slightly about the mouth and nose, drawing down into lines of pain, as though he might actually cry. He strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.
The silence he left behind was palpable.
Lady Kingair had, during the chaos, managed to change back into human form. She came around the front of the couch and stood a moment before Alexia, entirely naked, shielded only by her long gray-brown hair, loose over her shoulders and chest.
“You will understand, Lady Maccon,” she said, eyes cold, “if I ask you to leave Kingair territory at once. Lord Maccon may have abandoned us once, but he is still pack. And pack protects its own.”
“But,” Alexia whispered, “it is his child. I swear it. I was never with anyone else.”
Sidheag only stared at her, hard. “Come now, Lady Maccon. Shouldna you come up with a better story than that? ’Tis na possible. Werewolves canna breed children. Never have done, never will do.” Then she turned and left the room.
Alexia turned to Madame Lefoux, shock written all over her face. “He really believes I was unfaithful.” She herself had reflected recently how much Conall valued loyalty.
Madame Lefoux nodded. “I’m afraid it is a belief most will share.” Her expression sympathetic, she placed a small hand on Alexia’s shoulder and squeezed.
“I wasn’t, I swear I wasn’t.”
The Frenchwoman winced. “I believe that, Lady Maccon. But I will be in the minority.”
“Why would you trust me when even my husband does not?” Alexia looked down at her own stomach and then rested shaking hands upon it.
“Because I know how very little we understand about preternaturals.”
“You are interested in studying me, aren’t you, Madame Lefoux?”
“You are a remarkable creature, Alexia.”
Alexia widened her eyes, trying not to cry, her mind still vibrating with Conall’s words. “Then how is this possible?” She pressed hard against her stomach with both hands, as though asking the tiny creature inside to explain itself to her.
“I imagine that is something we had best figure out. Come on, let’s get you out of this place.”
The Frenchwoman helped Alexia to stand and supported her weight out into the hallway. She was surprisingly strong for such a delicate-looking creature, probably all that lifting of heavy machinery.
They ran into Felicity, looking remarkably somber.
“Sister, there was the most awful to-do,” she said as soon as she saw them. “I believe your husband just smashed one of the hall tables into a thousand pieces with his fist.” She cocked her head. “It was an astonishingly ugly table, but still, one could always give it to the deserving poor, couldn’t one?”
“We must pack and leave immediately,” said Madame Lefoux, keeping one arm supportively about Alexia’s waist.
“Good Lord, why?”
“Your sister is pregnant, and Lord Maccon has cast her out.”
Felicity frowned. “Well, that does not follow.”
Madame Lefoux had clearly had enough. “Quickly, girl, run off and gather your things together. We must quit Kingair directly.”
Three-quarters of an hour later, a borrowed Kingair carriage sped away toward the nearest train station. The horses were fresh and made good time, even in the slush and mud.
Alexia, still overcome with the most profound shock, opened the small window above the carriage door and poked her head out into the rushing wind.
“Sister, come away from the window. That will wreak havoc with your hair. And, really, your hair doesn’t need the excuse,” Felicity jawed on. Alexia ignored her, so Felicity looked to the Frenchwoman. “What is she doing?”
Madame Lefoux gave a sad little grimace of a smile—no dimples. “Listening.” She put a gentle hand on Alexia’s back, rubbing it softly. Alexia did not appear to notice.
“For what?”
“Howling, running wolves.”
And Alexia was listening, but there was only the damp quiet of a Scottish night.
orbitbooks.net
orbitshortfiction.com
Acknowledgments
This book really wouldn’t have happened without Kristin, Devi, and Francesca. No, really, you’d be reading a big fat collection of blank pages right now. Thanks, ladies, I owe you all wine and cheese! Lots of cheese. And a million hugs to J. Daniel Sawyer, who was more helpful, more often, than he realized.
CHAPTER ONE
Wherein the Misses Loontwill Cope with Scandal in Their Midst
How much longer, Mama, must we tolerate this gross humiliation?”
Lady Alexia Maccon paused before entering the breakfast room. Cutting through the comfortable sounds of chinking teacups and scrunching toast shrilled her sister’s less-than-dulcet tones. In an unsurprising morning duet of well-practiced whining, Felicity’s voice was soon followed by Evylin’s.
“Yes, Mumsy darling, such a scandal under our roof. We really shouldn’t be expected to put up with it any longer.”
Felicity championed the cause once more. “This is ruining our chances”—crunch, crunch—“beyond all recuperation. It isn’t to be borne. It really isn’t.”
Alexia made a show of checking her appearance in the hall mirror, hoping to overhear more. Much to her consternation, the Loontwill’s new butler, Swilkins, came through with a tray of kippers. He gave her a disapproving glare that said much on his opinion of a young lady caught eavesdropping on her own family. Eavesdropping was, by rights, a butler’s proprietary art form.
“Good morning, Lady Maccon,” he said loudly enough for the family to hear even through their chatting and clattering, “you received several messages yesterday.” He handed Alexia two folded and sealed letters and then waited pointedly for her to precede him into the breakfast room.
“Yesterday! Yesterday! And why, pray tell, did you not give them to me yesterday?”
Swilkins did not reply.
Nasty bit of bother, this new butler. Alexia was finding that little was worse in life than existing in a state of hostility with one’s domestic staff.
Entering the breakfast room, Alexia actually flounced slightly in her annoyance and turned her ire upon those seated before her. “Good morning, dearest family.”
As she made her way to the only empty chair, four pairs of blue eyes watched her progress with an air of condemnation. Well, three pairs—the Right Honorable Squire Loontwill was entirely taken with the correct cracking of his soft-boiled egg. This involved the application of an ingenious little device, rather like a handheld sideways guillotine, that nipped the tip off the egg in perfect, chipless circularity. Thus happily engrossed, he did not bother to attend to the arrival of his stepdaughter.
Alexia poured herself a glass of barley water and took a piece of toast from the rack, no butter, trying to ignore the smoky smell of breakfast. It had once been her favorite meal; now it invariably curdled her stomach. So far, the infant-inconvenience—as she’d taken to thinking of it—was proving itself far more tiresome than one would have thought possible, considering it was years away from either speech or action.
Mrs. Loontwill looked with manifest approval at her daughter’s meager selection. “I shall be comforted,” she said to the table at large, “by the fact that our poor dear Alexia is pr
actically wasting away for want of her husband’s affection. Such fine feelings of sentimentality.” She clearly perceived Alexia’s breakfast-starvation tactics as symptoms of a superior bout of wallowing.
Alexia gave her mother an annoyed glance and inflicted minor wrath upon her toast with the butter knife. Since the infant-inconvenience had added a small amount of weight to Alexia’s already substantial figure, she was several stone away from “wasting.” Nor was she of a personality inclined toward wallowing. In addition, she resented the fact that Lord Maccon might be thought to have anything whatsoever to do with the fact—aside from the obvious, of which her family was as yet unaware—that she was off her food. She opened her mouth to correct her mother in this regard, but Felicity interrupted her.
“Oh, Mama, I hardly think Alexia is the type to die of a broken heart.”
“Nor is she the type to be gastronomically challenged,” shot back Mrs. Loontwill.
“I, on the other hand,” interjected Evylin, helping herself to a plateful of kippers, “may jolly well do both.”
“Language, Evy darling, please.” Mrs. Loontwill snapped a piece of toast in half in her distress.
The youngest Miss Loontwill rounded on Alexia, pointing a forkful of egg at her accusingly. “Captain Featherstonehaugh has thrown me over! How do you like that? We received a note only this morning.”
“Captain Featherstonehaugh?” Alexia muttered to herself. “I thought he was engaged to Ivy Hisselpenny and you were engaged to someone else. How confusing.”
“No, no, Evy’s engaged to him now. Or was. How long have you been staying with us? Nearly two weeks? Do pay attention, Alexia dear,” Mrs. Loontwill admonished.
Evylin sighed dramatically. “And the dress is already bought and everything. I shall have to have it entirely made over.”
“He did have very nice eyebrows,” consoled Mrs. Loontwill.
“Exactly,” crowed Evylin. “Where will I find another pair of eyebrows like that? Devastated, I tell you, Alexia. I am utterly devastated. And it is all your fault.”
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 60